Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, November 13, 1995 TAG: 9511130116
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: BOB ZELLER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: HAMPTON, GA. LENGTH: Medium
But even though the old veteran waxed the field at Atlanta Motor Speedway and ran away with the NAPA 500, it was too little, too late, to overtake the 24-year-old for the 1995 Winston Cup championship.
Gordon and his team, baffled by one of the worst-handling cars they've had all season, struggled to complete 314 of the 328 laps. They finished 32nd.
Officially, the margin of Gordon's championship was 34 points. He's lucky he didn't have another race.
It was all over on lap 61, when Gordon led a lap, earned five bonus points and locked up the title.
A couple of hours later, on lap 258, as he fought to keep the car going straight, Gordon told his crew on the radio: ``This is one of those unique days when we can run this bad and be this happy. ''
Replied crew chief Ray Evernham: ``I hope we don't have to have another one.''
Earnhardt, meanwhile, was doing it as only Earnhardt can, slicing through traffic with dash and daring, pulling away from the field and eventually beating Sterling Marlin by 3.74 seconds for his fifth victory of the season. The only reason it wasn't a 10-second margin was because Earnhardt backed off at the end to save gas.
Rusty Wallace finished third, followed by Bill Elliott and Ward Burton. Two other top-10 drivers had their best season finishes: Jimmy Spencer in sixth and Bobby Hillin in ninth.
A runaway is almost always a boring race, but Earnhardt made several daring passes that added at least a dash of spice to the event, including one pass that has to be included on his ever-growing list of great driving moves.
After a restart on lap 82, Earnhardt went into the third turn in fourth place. He came out of the fourth turn in the lead. He passed Gordon in third, Elliott in second and Ricky Rudd, who was leading at the time, as well as Mark Martin, who was trying to stay ahead of Rudd on the lead lap.
``Mark was loose and holding them up,'' Earnhardt explained. ``They weren't sure which way to go. I went down to the bottom and went on.''
No one else in the sport, not even Gordon, makes those kind of moves on such a regular basis.
But if Earnhardt could overcome all obstacles on the track Sunday, he could not overcome the 147-point lead Gordon had coming into the season-ending race. But he came close.
Gordon ran in the top five early in the race, but something happened in the front end of the car that made it almost impossible to drive.
``Every time I try to push the car to make it faster, the car jumps out on me,'' Gordon told Evernham on the radio around lap 180.
``I don't know,'' a puzzled Evernham replied. ``I'm trying to figure out something. We'll figure out something.''
On the next pit stop, that ``something'' was major changes.
Evernham lowered the pannard bar one inch and made other adjustments.
``It ought to be tight now,'' Gordon said.
But it was worse than ever.
Shortly after lap 200, Gordon called in, almost desperate.
``This is horrible,'' he said. ``I gotta pit. Let me pit now. It's getting to the point where I'm barely even going straight down the straightaways.''
Gordon was already three laps down by then, and the team pulled him in for a stop that lasted several more laps. Still, nothing worked.
``At that point, I was hanging onto the car for dear life,'' Gordon said.
So just before a late-race pit stop, Evernham told Gordon they would be testing some new crew members.
When Gordon arrived for service, car owner Rick Hendrick cleaned the windshield. Evernham came over the wall to change the front tires. Patrick Donohue, normally the tire carrier, changed the rear tires. And chief mechanic Ed Guzzo, who never goes over the wall on pit stops, was the jack man.
During the stop, Gordon chimed in on the radio: ``We got any other volunteers that want to take this seat?''
``It took 39 seconds,'' Evernham said with a laugh. ``We were screwed anyway.''
And even though Gordon couldn't get anything to go right Sunday, he didn't have to. And when it was over, he spun his car at the start-finish line and did a donut on the pavement.
``I kinda looked at the front stretch and I said, `I don't know if it's wide enough, but I'm going to do it. I've been close to spinning out all day, so I might as well go ahead and do it.'
``If you could have asked me today what would I rather do - go out and dominate the race and lead every lap and win, or finish 30th and win the championship - I know which one I'd pick - the seat I'm in right now.''
``They'll be serving milk at the banquet instead of champagne,'' Earnhardt quipped. ``All kidding aside, he's sitting at that table drinking milk, and I'm not.''
``I'll drink milk,'' said Gordon. ``I like milk, but I guarantee I'll be having a little champagne, too.''
by CNB